


Yes, this is Cas. Can we go now?

by dragoneyes



Series: The Prince and The Dragon [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Crack, Dragon!Cas, Fluff, Interspecies Romance, Jo being Jo, M/M, prince!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 16:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3536756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragoneyes/pseuds/dragoneyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean sometimes wonders why his friends can't stop meddling with his business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes, this is Cas. Can we go now?

"She asked him to stay for dinner?!"

"She 'strongly invited him to participate'," Dean corrected the blond woman, trying to ignore the unashamed laugh that followed his words.

He was starting to regret telling Jo about the events of the last few weeks, but she had been probing and poking at him for information since "that dragon of yours swept down the sky to save your ass" – in her words, not his – until she pointed out how worried she had been for him and how the least he could do was to give her some peace of mind – Dean still highly suspected the dramatic words she used at the time to be only an excuse – and he finally bowed down to her demands.

"Your dad must have been livid," she added with a chuckle: sometimes she forgot that she was supposed to address the King and the Queen with the proper honorifics, still having to completely shed the remnants of a time when, together with the two princes, they used to ran amok the castle and cause trouble for everyone in their path.

"Yeah, well, it's not like he's ever happy about anything," Dean shrugged, mouth pressing into a hard line while he turned his gaze to the landscape extending in front of them. The blond Knight was technically standing on guard on the southeastern walls, and the prince had decided to join her when, only a few hours before, his father abruptly dismissed him from his duties.

At the time it left him puzzled because it wasn't like John to cut him some slack, but when he tried to query the older man about it, the other's only answer was a vague explanation that there was nothing of interest he needed him for at the moment.

Dean wasn't stupid: he had seen the letter that had arrived early that morning, forewarning for that afternoon the arrival of the delegation party from the kingdom further south from theirs, and if the king were behaving like his usual self, he would want his firstborn to participate at least to the preliminary formalities involved with such an event.

It made no sense for John to let Dean "have the rest of the day off", and he could only guess that the reason behind that decision was that the whole Cas-thing was still a sore spot for the older man.

"Self-pity, Winchester? That's not like you!" Jo commented, her tone becoming lighter while she sent him a worried glance: his thoughts must have shown on his face more than he intended them to.

"Hardly," Dean rolled his eyes, not needing to be babied by someone he considered on par with a little sister.

"Oh, hey!" a sudden interested spark lit her gaze at his reply, the kind of which he knew to be the forebear of all kind of troubles. In the decades they had known each other, he knew that there were just two kind of expressions he should be wary of when it came down to Jo: her "I will kick your sorry ass even if I've to jump in the jaws of a demon to get to you" glare and her current "let's try to embarrass Dean as much as possible" grin.

"Speaking about _hard_ and everything!" she continued, almost chirping in delight when she saw the suspicious look that her excitement brough on her friend's face, "How does that even work with a dragon?"

She...wasn't asking what Dean thought she was...right? – oh, who was he kidding, she totally was!

"...because, I mean, he's kind of _huge_! And I'm not saying you can't take on anyone of any size, your Highness, but there is no way that the sword he's sheathing is anything short than one gigantic dic—"

"Jo!" he hissed, feeling his whole face go on fire in a matter of instants while he quickly made sure that no-one else was around to hear his frankly-now-ex-friend's completely inappropriate queries about Castiel's equipment.

"What?" she shrugged when he recovered enough to send her a glare, "A girl is curious, and it's not like you left me with much else information to think about after that whole 'getting saved from a bunch of wyverns' thing..."

"That's none of your business!" Dean snapped back, his cheek still feeling like he just ran a few miles with a pack of hungry werewolves breathing down his neck.

"Hey! I'm your friendly neighborhood Knight!" she retorted, completely unfazed by his sharp tone, "It's my duty to make sure that our beloved crown prince isn't being taken advantage of by a giant winged lizard five times his height!"

Dean grimaced at her words. He knew that she was only teasing, but he heard people assume that Cas was somehow trying to use him for his own designs too many times recently.

Rationally, he knew it made sense for them to be suspicious, but it still annoyed him that they would so readily lump his friend with the kind of dragons they heard stories about – the gold and silver ones that were said to have battled each other so fiercely that they made a rich country from the south become a huge desert waste; the copper one from the red canyons in the east that was said to trick people with deadly illusions whenever it felt like it; and the vicious black one living even further east than that, haunting ever-raining marshes that no-one dared to set their foot in.

"Cas isn't taking advantage of anyone," he huffed in the end, "The guy lived secluded in a cave for decades before I dragged his ass out of it."

In fact, from what the dragon told him, he used to only go out to hunt and to search for new treasures for his hoard whenever he felt particularly restless. Otherwise he mostly slept: as long as no-one tried to enter his nest without permission, he was perfectly content leaving the rest of the world – and humans in particular – to its own devices.

"So he's treating you right?" Jo asked, pulling out what looked like a small piece of wood from her pocket. When she started to suck on one end of it, Dean realized it must be one of those liquorice roots his brother liked to munch on so much to keep himself awake: the Captain's habits must be starting to rubbing off on his Knights.

"What am I? A young maiden now?" the prince grumbled, feeling like that conversation kept repeating itself with every new person that found out about Cas.

"Well, you tried to court your kidnapper," she started, a grin forming again on her lips, "and your kidnapper is also a dragon: _he_ can't be the damsel between the two of you."

"Why are you people all so fixated on this damsel thi—" Dean started to glower back at her, but his protests were interrupted when a sudden ruckus made them both turn to focus their attention to the courtyard several feet below them: the delegation they had been waiting for had finally arrived.

Slowly pressing his lips together into a hard line, the prince watched as a man and two women stepped inside the walls perimeter, followed by a few servants.

The two women were dark-haired and about the same height, but while one of them held herself with a kind of regal grace, the other's posture was more cocky, her arms folded on her chest in a show of confidence that Dean recognized instinctively as something he did himself a lot when faced with a potentially dangerous situation.

She sent a glance in his direction, as if instinctively feeling his gaze on her, but she only spared a few moments to grin at him before turning her eyes back in front of her, apparently dismissing him for one of the castle's guards.

Dean moved his attention on the man standing in front of her.

Even from the distance separating them, Dean could tell that the man was older than the two women, probably in his middle age, and was subtly looking around with a kind of lazy confidence that reminded him of the big felines haunting the southern planes where the other was from.

The prince had no doubt that, between the three of them, he was the one with any decisional power.

Truth be told, the kingdom confining with their southern borders was a bit of a puzzle.

Only a century before, it was said to be lavish and outstandingly beautiful, both in its territories and man-made cities: riches could be found in both the luxuriant forests and fertile soil that extended through it, and the gold and jewels its inhabitant so readily showed off for any traveler passing by.

Then the two dragons living there – a big silver and a smaller gold that compensated its inferior size with vicious cleverness – entered in a territory fight that lasted for decades, destroying most of the country's natural resources until a desert waste was all that was left behind, and forcing the majority of the people living there to flee to the nearby kingdoms.

Now it was mostly avoided by anyone wanting to go south, merchants and travelers preferring to take a wider route through the red canyons of the east rather than adventuring through such a dangerous territory.

When, only a month before, they first received a letter from the country's current ruler – Queen Lilith of the Lightbringer family – explaining how she wanted to mend the trading deals once lost, now that the two dragons plaguing her land had seemingly stopped their fight, they had all been very surprised.

The delegation party currently waiting in the courtyard was supposed to explain the current situation of their kingdom in further details and, if the conditions were good enough, to start discussing about the possibility of re-opening the old trading routes now disused.

If Dean hadn't been already convinced that his father was going through some roundabout way to punish him for hiding Cas from him, he would have been surprised when Sam was the first of the family to welcome their important guests – a role that was usually reserved to him as crown prince of the kingdom.

With a bitter grimace he watched as the small party was escorted by his brother and a few of his men inside the main keep, and he wondered if his father had any intention of involving him at all in the proceedings or if he was just going to ignore him for the rest of the—

"Hello, Dean."

"God fuck!" the prince shout, eyes going wide and heart skipping a beat at the sudden gravelly voice coming from behind his back. In front of him, Jo looked equally startled but she recovered pretty quickly, trying to peer above Dean's shoulder in a matter of seconds.

"Cas! What the Hell are you doing?!" the prince couldn't help but exclaim when he whirled around only to be faced with his mate's long snout: the dragon was standing on his hinder legs while he leaned against the outer walls with his front paws, his long serpentine neck arched over it, allowing his big head to hover at less than a couple of feet from Dean. The protrusions just below his nape and the ones on his shoulders were standing at attention, as if trying to aid his flared-out wings in maintaining his precarious balance.

"You were absent too long. I was beginning to worry you might have been taken from me," Cas replied with a slow and confused blink, as if that were obvious. Dean frowned and watched while the other's attention turned to the blond woman still curiously peering back at him: was the dragon worried that someone else might try to court him?

"Hello, Jo." the dragon greeted, his voice coming out in a quiet and unthreatening rumble.

"Hey, Castiel," she greeted back with a grin, stepping around the man in front of her to move closer to the dragon, "Nice to finally speak to you! Dean here doesn't give us much info, he only ever says that you aren't an enemy and we shouldn't try to catch you..."

"That's because you're worse than a crowd of old hags when it comes to gossip," the prince grumbled but he was easily ignored by the female Knight.

"...but I've to tell you, buddy! You better be treating Dean right or you're gonna have a lot of people to answer to!" she concluded, her fists now resting on her hips and her chest puffed out in challenge.

"Why would I not do that?" was the puzzled reply the dragon gave while he squinted his eyes at her, "I am aware of his value," he added before shifting his gaze on his mate.

The prince knew that stare, it was the same look Cas always got when he was using his second vision and peering directly at his soul. With his current reptilian features it should have been difficult to see any difference, but Dean knew every dip and bump on the other's muzzle, and it was easy for him to recognize the way the dragon's mouth opened just enough for the tip of his tongue to peek between his lips, or the way his eyes slipped just a fraction closer, giving him the appearance of a big, pleased cat.

"Yeah, well, whatever," the prince cleared his throat, feeling his cheeks growing hot under his mate's scrutiny. "Why doesn't anyone seem alarmed by Cas' presence anyway?" he asked, ignoring the teasing grin on Jo's face in order to address the obvious lack of screaming people running away and armed guards ready to fight off the mighty beast attacking their home.

"Ah, that," the blonde Knight shrugged, "To be honest, everyone's kind of used to him appearing out of no-where to kidnap you and you coming back unscathed by the whole ordeal, so people just kind of started to believe your word about Castiel not being a danger and decided to just let him do his thing whenever he passes by."

Well then...

"That is much appreciated," the dragon rumbled, "your weapons are not strong enough to harm me, but they _are_ annoying, and I would rather not have Dean complain again about all the arrows your knights waste on me."

The laugh bursting out of Jo at those words was filled with surprised delight and she had to spare a minute to take a few deep breaths before she could speak again, "Yeah, he does that at times," she commented, grinning unrepentantly at the prince when he tried to make his displeasure known at her teasing by sending a withering glare in her direction.

"But anyway, Cas!" she continued, ignoring the frowning man at her side, "My shift's basically ended, and I was gonna ask this grumpy guy over here to come down to the tavern and have a few drinks together, since he's been sulking the whole morning. Wanna hang out with us? Dean said you could turn human, right?"

"I suppose so...?" the dragon carefully conceded, after glancing at his mate to ask for his opinion on the matter. If one didn't considered the dinner with his parents, the prince wasn't exactly sure that Cas actually ever had any extended interaction with other humans. On one hand that thought seemed like even more of a reason not to let the dragon roam about in a tavern filled with noisy and drunk men; on the other it also seemed like a good way to make him more acquaintance with having to deal with people.

In the end Dean's reply to the other's silent query was a slow shrug, deciding that only the dragon would know what made him more comfortable

"Yes, I would like that," Castiel repeated with more conviction.

The whole shapeshifting procedure was surprisingly discrete. There were neither weird flashes of light nor loud noises announcing what was about to happen: one moment the dragon's silvery head was hovering above them, and the next one there was a man at a few feet from where they were standing, bright blue eyes peering at them with unearthly intelligence and shoulders wrapped in a beige cloak that was two sizes too big for him.

"Shit, he's hot!" Dean heard Jo whisper at his side and a flicker of jealousy wrapped his chest, making him take a few steps between the two of them before he realized what he was doing.

"Dean says as much frequently," Cas hummed in agreement, a hint of smugness in his voice while his gaze landed once again on his mate and refused to move away from him. The prince felt his shoulders relax almost instantly.

"All right, let me get Ash, and I'm all yours," Jo grinned again and sprinted off under the Castiel's confused squint and Dean's indulgent gaze.

******

The Little Sea was the best tavern that could be found within several days of horse ride.

In spite of its name, it was located no-where near any sea and, in fact, it was instead at only half an hour walk from the castle's southwestern walls. It was a fairly large building well-known among the town's people for having both the best beer and the best wine one could ask for in one of such places.

(Incidentally, the woman owning it, Andrea Kormos, was also well-known for a reason all on her own: when she first inherited the place from her late father, many old patrons suddenly began to think that they could do things they were not permitted to them before, unwittingly believing that, since she had two things too many on her chest and one less below her waist, she couldn't possibly execute any kind of authority over them.

This culminated with an extremely inebriated man – a guy named Sorento that was never seen again after that episode – trying to touch her in places only her husband Benny was allowed to, and with Andrea's answer to his wandering hands being a knife placed just right to let him know that if he didn't respect her because she lacked his same equipment between her legs, then he could as well go without his own.)

Although the Little Sea was a respectable establishment, if it were any other country a prince wouldn't be normally seen taking a step inside of it. Anyone in the kingdom, however, was well aware of the fact that the Winchester family was anything but typical nobility, and so it surprised none of the locals whenever the eldest son of the King joined the other knights in their merriment.

"Victor, guess what!" Jo shouted as soon as she located him in one of the quieter tables of the main room: the other Knight always tended to avoid the noisier part of the tavern, preferring to watch the rest of the crowd from his undisturbed corner.

"I finally managed to get Dean's ass to hang out with us!" she grinned, asking one of the waitress to bring them a round of beer before taking a sit next to the dark-skinned man.

"I haven't been absent _that_ long..." the prince protested while he gestured for Cas to get himself comfortable on the chair next to his own.

"It's been a week since we last even spoke to each other," the female Knight replied with a roll of her eyes, "Drinking together? That I can't even remember when it happened anymore!"

"Your visits _were_ remarkably more frequent than usual before the...clarifying discussion with your parents," the dragon absently considered, his head tilting on one side in confusion when he saw the half-shocked half-betrayed look that his words elicited on his mate's face.

"See? He agrees with me!" Jo couldn't help but gloat with delighted amusement, before turning to Victor once again, "This is Cas by the way."

The other Knight squinted in scrutiny at the human-shaped dragon: since they stepped close enough that he was able to first notice Jo and Dean's unknown companion, his gaze had remained firmly fixed on the quiet man at their side, studying him with focused suspicion.

Without a word he took in the ruffled hair, the average-sized body held with the kind of absent confidence that tended to be an omen of significant danger, the beige cloak Victor was sufficiently sure to actually belong to Dean, and the unblinking blue eyes that seemed to be staring right at his soul.

"No," that only word left him while he turned to stare at their prince, ignoring the way the newcomer tilted his head in curiosity at his reaction.

"No," he repeated again, "With all due respect, _your Highness_ , how did bringing him in the middle of the town seem like a good idea?" he asked, his gaze going hard as he tried to convey to the Winchesters' firstborn just how much of a disaster this could turn in.

Dean was about to protest that he had no say in that particular decision – although Cas would have probably refrained from indulging Jo's plans if he had actually asked him to – but he was anticipated by the blond woman's excited reply.

"It was my idea actually!"

The scowl on Victor's face only grew deeper.

"Why am I not surprised?" he flatly commented while he turned his gaze once again to study the object of their discussion: the dragon was watching their interaction with the kind of detached curiosity that people usually reserved for particularly unusual animals, his head slightly cocked on one side and shoulders relaxed in amicability.

It made the older Knight's skin crawl with uneasiness.

"But Victor!" Jo exclaimed after chugging down a good half of her beer, "He is interested in our beloved prince! It's our duty as Royal Knights to interrogate him on his intentions!"

Her words seemed to rewaken Castiel from his stillness, making his lips twitch up at the corners and his eyes crinkle in amusement before he turned to the man sitting at his side, "You are remarkably well-liked among your people, everyone seem to believe that they should make sure I'm handling you with the deserved care."

Dean's following grumble was lost when the excitable young woman pressed right on, "Exactly! We need to be certain that you are able to make our prince happy in every possible way!" she stated as if that was some kind of law that had been passed while no-one was looking, her face splitting in a wide grin that promised nothing good was about to come.

"Which is why I'm _obligated_ to ask: how do you provide to him with..." the following gesture was both rude and crude enough that Dean had to take a moment to wonder if Ellen knew about the kind of behaviors that her daughter was apparently starting to absorb from her fellow male Knights, before his brain finally caught up with what she asking to whom and he shout out in outrage.

"Are you still going on about that?!"

"With much imagination..." Castiel considered aloud, blue eyes alight with amusement at the scene unfolding in front of him.

"And you don't encourage her!" Dean tried to stop his mate before something extremely embarrassing could come out of his mouth: if they ended up scarring the two knights by accident because of the dragon blurting out something that he thought to be armless when in reality it really really wasn't, Sam was going to demand his head!

"...and I learned how to turn human for him," the dragon concluded, sounding as mild and calm as if he were talking about the weather. The prince wasn't fooled even for an instant: the amused twinkle in the other's eyes wasn't difficult for him to spot.

"Awww, Dean! He learned for _you_ ," the prince inwardly cringed when he heard Jo's tone at that newfound piece of information, and he couldn't help himself from outright scowling when the blonde woman waggled her goddamn eyebrows at him, like he was some kind of teenage boy who had just managed to catch the attention of the man he had been secretly in love with for years.

"Of course I did," Castiel replied as if anything else would be a misstep on his part, "I value him greatly."

Perhaps, Dean considered while he turned his gaze to the ground, if he wished it long enough, the floor would actually open up and swallow him whole. He could feel his cheeks burst aflame at the dragon's words and his mouth going dry like it always did recently when the other praised him so explicitly: before they started their affair, he used to brush off these kind of statements on the other's part as Cas being just a little weird and not accustomed to interacting with humans, but now they made warm tingles run up and down his body every time they were directed at him.

Of course the dragon valued him greatly, he was part of his hoard after all, and there was no better compliment that any of Castiel's kin could ever give!

When he turned his attention back to the other people at the table, he found that Cas was placidly chatting with Jo, occasionally answering Victor's suspicious queries, and overall having no trouble dealing with them.

One of his hands had also shifted to squeeze the prince's closest thigh in a gesture of comfort, and Dean couldn't help himself from subtly tangling their fingers together, a small grin raising on his face at the feeling of the other's cool skin against his own.

Yes, whatever was going on between them could totally work.

**Author's Note:**

> I made a Tumblr blog where I'll be posting all my fanfictions and fanarts, you can find it here: <http://dragon-scribbling-scribbles.tumblr.com/>
> 
> If you're interested in my personal blog instead, it's over here: <http://dragoneyes.tumblr.com/>


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